This invention is directed to fibrous-reinforced plastic material, in particular a process for fabricating composite structures from fiber-reinforced plastic material and to an apparatus for effecting this process.
Plastic materials reinforced with fibers, especially glass fibers, have achieved considerable commercial importance. The remarkable strength properties of bodies comprising continuous fibers or filaments enclosed in a matrix of resinous material are exploited in the process known as filament winding, in which the reinforcement consits of filamentous non-metallic or metallic materials in fibrous or tape form. Fibers other than glass have been recently used for filament winding. Typically, these include fibers formed from carbon, boron, silicon carbide, graphite, silicon nitride, alumina or metals including glass coated wires. The windings generally comprise continuous, side-by-side aligned fiber strands impregnated with a resin composition which may be applied as a viscous liquid or as a thin continuous film and then partially cured or "B" staged.
Present apparatus employed for this purpose provides many undesirable characteristics, such as, uneven positioned windings, gaps between the filaments of the windings, changes of tension between the filaments and mandrel with changes in mandrel contour, to name a few.
The present invention overcomes or improves many of the inadequate characteristics of the present state of the art which results in an improved article.